September 2008 Edition. Spring Time

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1 September 2008 Edition Spring Time As most of you know I have now returned after my 3 months of maternity leave and am loving being back in the full swing of things and looking forward to a great 3 months before the end of the year. A big thank you to all of our clients who have offered their continued support as well as my fantastic team that steered the ship in my absence. There have been a couple of changes during this time and the biggest one is that I am proud to announce that I have made Justine Lottering Media Director of Alphabet Soup. She has proved over the past five years her commitment to Alphabet Soup in more ways than one and has continued to be invaluable as a partner and colleague. She is steeped in media, has grown as an excellent strategist and has managed our clients with the outmost professionalism. Her intelligence and knowledge is a great asset and she has built very strong relationships with our clients and media partners over the years. I would also like to welcome on board our new client Natura. Alphabet Soup was recently awarded the strategic planning and media buying for Natura Laboratory. Natura Laboratory was established in 1966 and has become a leader in the Homeopathic field by providing a homoeopathic core range especially suited to the treatment of common and minor illnesses and to complement the treatment of chronic and more serious conditions. The campaign utilises a mixture of television, radio and print and commenced in June We look forward to a great relationship with San- Marie and her team. Our website has been upgraded and is going live mid October so please ensure that you log in regularly for the latest news in the media industry, updated links and various research presentations. Our new division of digital media is continuing to sore so if you do require a strategy please contact Justine or Eladio. We have found that our pay per click offering on Google is working for so many of our clients and that most clients are dedicating more than 10% of their 2009 budget to reworking their site and ensuring that they are well positioned for the digital revolution in marketing. We will be setting up the Alphabet Soup Facebook group as a means of communicating with our partners on events and happenings at Alphabet Soup. I hope you find our quarterly newsletter an interesting read and if you require any additional information please don t hesitate to contact Eladio or myself. Remember that the next 3 months set the platform for 2009, so let s not let interest rates, petrol prices or the price of food consume us, let s put our heads down and do what we do best!

2 How do you live your digital lifestyle? The BMI Technology group has recently launched a new product which aims to investigate how medium and high-end consumers are currently living their digital lifestyles and attempts to predict how they will increase or decrease their digital lifestyles in the future. The report provides quantitative and qualitative insights into the behaviour customers with regards to key emerging market trends, under the key themes of communication, media and digital consumer goods. The types of elements researched in the report include the types of digital products consumers use, preferred digital brand, internet products used, top used websites, mobile instant messaging software usage patterns, prices consumers would be willing to pay for media services such as Pay TV, HDTV and so on. Client can purchase this research, which will include a PowerPoint presentation and an Excel spreadsheet (with over 1000 graphs), from BMI Technologies. The price is available on application. The Mxit Generation Those of you who do not know Mxit by now fall out of the over 8 million strong registered users group, however you may still have a chance to be one of the to new users who register for Mxit per day. As an advertiser, you might be surprised to find out that 63% of the existing Mxit users are 19 years and older (40% are 19 to 25 year old) and even more surprisingly only 27% are between 12 and 18 years old. With the combination of over 10 million log-ins per day and a very flexible communication environment, it s no surprise that Mxit offer an array of creative, unique and effective advertising opportunities for their clients, which include brands such as Peugeot, Samsung, Ster-Kinekor, Engen and many more. Feel free to visit the Alphabet Soup website for a full presentation on Mxit and other media related research.

3 High School Musical Spotlight South Africa The High School Musical phenomenon (which all parents would fully understand) has hit South African shores in a big way. This huge Disney success has developed an enormous following among the SA youth and now Mnet are producing the first reality show based on the Movie(s) in the world. The new reality series is a talent show which will search for the SA s own Troy and Gabrielle, and the two winners (male and female) will be given the lead roles in the stage production, which will be produced by Pieter Toerien and Hazel Feldman. Cardies have showed their support for the localised version of the hugely popular Disney franchise by sponsoring the show. Cardies, who have in the past sponsored SA Idols, believe that this sponsorship will offer them a great opportunity to connect with their target market. Generation NeXt On 25 May 08 the Sunday Times carried the annual Generation Next supplement in association with HDI Youth Marketeers and Monash University. The annual supplement is based on an annual Youth Brand Preference Study conducted amongst urban Youths between the ages of 8 22 years old, who according to the research findings influence a total spend of R6.5 billion R10 billion every month. The brand categories looked at include the coolest fast food outlet (KFC), coolest brands (Coca-Cola), coolest fashion label (Billabong), coolest music store (Musica) and many more. This research is available from HDI, in either an industry specific presentation for R or a half day workshop for R Hours of E Etv launched its first 24 hour a day channel, called the enews Channel, which is available on the DSTV bouquet (on channel 403). The enews channel offers local, regional and international news, including live reports, breaking news, sport, weather, entertainment, financial information and current affairs. Currently advertisers can purchase spots per available time band, as well as custom packages based on the campaign budget, timing and objectives.

4 The Top 10 Magazines The release of the Magazine Circulation figures for the period Jan Mar 08 featured a mixture of interesting shuffles and consistent performers in the top 10 positions. The top three publications held their podium positions, as they have done since July 07, with Huisgenoot taking first place and You and Move following in second and third. When compared to the period Oct Dec 07, TV Plus was a big winners climbing to 4 th from 7 th. Cosmopolitan and People were less fortunate and dropped in ranking and are now ranked 6 th and 7 th from 4 th and 6 th. For a full list of the magazine circulation figures for this period be sure to drop Alphabet Soup a mail. Over 40s Research A new Unilever Institute study called Prime Time has found that the Urban 40plus demographic group (who make up only 6% of South Africans) account for nearly 20% of all SA spend. This market has become increasingly important to marketers in SA as a result of high prices and increasing interest rates seriously reducing the spending power of most markets. They however boast a combined income of close to R 300 billion and Prime Time has further revealed that nearly half of the 50plus market who are in LSM 7 plus claim they have no debt. The study was conducted in conjunction with Synovate and was the largest study ever carried out on SA s mature market. The full presentation is available from The Unilever Institute for R 1,500.

5 Online and On Track The Alphabet Soup and Purple Cow relationship has been going strong for the last year, and a lot of our clients are utilising the online services now part of our offering. Alphabet Soup manages the entire process and our online offering includes: Search Engine Optimisation Pay Per Click advertising Website Optimisation Competitor analysis Web analytics Adserving and campaign management Banner, rich media & creative design in line with existing creative teams Online advertising and ad network advertising Online media planning & buying Affiliate marketing and newsletter management Website usability testing & Web development and web hosting (outsourced) The online space is a rapidly growing medium, and has now become a necessity as a standard marketing tool specifically used to increase sales. Indications of costs involved for a test campaign are: 3 month Pay Per Click campaign R month Search Engine Optimisation campaign R One month online advertising campaign R Alphabet Soup strongly recommends that clients consider online as part of their 2009 media strategy.

6 Four times the BBC The BBC Worldwide Channels transition to its now revamped and re-grouped genre channels has been in effect from September and is delivering on the promise of great programming. The mix of comedy, drama, entertainment, lifestyle, factual programming and much more has increased the viewing pleasure of the common DSTV subscriber. According to Chris Hitchings, Sales Director at Oracle Airtime Sales The rejuvenated BBC channels are linedup with first-run acquisitions providing industry players with fresh opportunities to showcase clients and reposition brands. Reaching for the Black Diamonds Oracle have put together a special DSTV package which is targeted specifically at a lucrative black market and uses eight DSTV channels to reach them, these include Channel O, Hallmark, M-Net Action, Supersport 3 and 4, BBC World, National Geographic and Africa Magic. The package Oracle have on offer includes a total of 540 spots (18 spots a day) over a 30 day period, with roughly 50% of spots flighting in prime time for R 100, 000. Please feel free to contact one of the Alphabet Soup team members for more information. Nothing but Opportunity The media industry is rife with opportunities and advertising packages for advertisers seeking to increase or maintain their brand awareness, run an effective retail campaign, launch new products/brands or simply reach new target markets. With only three months to go, it is easy to make the mistake of writing off the remainder of the year in terms of advertising and start looking forward to your yearend vacation, however during this competitive time of the year it becomes more critical than ever to plan your media carefully in order to get past the clutter and maintain your brands top-of-mind awareness.